February 28th, 2003

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Your February 28th, 2003 YouCanDraw.com
Communiqué

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||


In this e-zine: starting from the top. Taking the next 12 months to work through
all the lessons  -- starting today!


--------------------------------------------------



Howdy all,

today's email will mark the kick-off to something I've been asked to do more than
once - and it's something I enjoy doing too. And what's that? It's this:

We're going to review the whole entire book: one lesson at a time. So each information
email (the monthly communiqué - not the monthly caricature) will deal with a short
summary of each lesson (possibly two lessons), an assignment with a short objective
and - also per Mary Dormans' of New Jersey request, I'll try to include links to all the archived
emails and ezines from past ezines that have anything to with the lesson(s) of the month.
(Mary was the one who convinced me it was time to start organizing the emails, the lessons
and give assignments. Thank you Mary :-)

That being done we'll also build a section  within the Archives where this series of emails
will be kept - so in concept you'll have a quick reference center for each of the book's 15
lessons. Also being planned is more homework and Flash lessons for making those
complicated ideas and concepts more understandable. On with it!

(Link to the archives: http://ycdinsiders.digitalchainsaw.com/InsidersArtistLoft/archives.htm )



Lessons One and Two:

Ok. This is the very beginning. The whole idea in Lesson one  - and in fact the foundation
of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (DRSB) techniques  - is to recognize that your
brain has at least two very different methods of processing information. What are these two?

1) The language-run side of your brain (credited to the left brain/L-mode) It works in a linear
logical fashion (a follows b follows c), it's analytical, great with numbers (because numbers
are logical) etc. Language has it's home here since language itself is linear, occurs over time, and
follows a logic. People who have injuries to this side of the brain often lose the ability to speak
and do math. They recognize people just fine - but can't name them.

2) The other side (or mode) of your head/brain is the right brain/R-mode. It works in giant
leaps, intuitions, gestalts, feelings, is great with spatial orientation (like when you're
shooting a basket, humming a tune or parallel parking your car). It works largely in pictures
and sensations. It's the associative side of the brain (as in "free association").  Injury to this
side of the brain leaves a person with the curious ability to name a person - but be clueless
as to who the heck they are (wild stuff).


You cannot survive without both. And they're in constant conflict. As a child, before you
learned how to talk you lived in you imagination: in your right brain. When language came
along, you spent less and less time there (in your right brain). Over time language and
the language-driven ways we're required to deal in - which  we 're  pretty much forced
to live in - became almost the only way we interact with the world. R-mode becomes weak.


How do you get more "R-mode" into your life?

Sports are an escape, as is day dreaming, as is making music, or drawing, or
meditation or comedy improvisation, or even something as simple as walking. All
these use a great deal more of "the right side of the brain". Poets (good poets)
have learned how to bridge language and the visual/spatial/emotional side of the
brain as have the better visual artists out there - as have all great artists (whose
job in my opinion is to crack back open the imagination.) But we don't have to
get that grandiose today :-)


The Rub


Problem is we've forgotten how to recognize when the two sides of the brain are in
conflict: the language-driven left brain is so dominant, the right brain is just stuffed right
back into it's corner. So how do we tease out the right brain? Maybe the better question
is "how do we get the left brain to step aside?"

And that's just exactly what the DRSB lessons (Part I of the book) are designed to do:
presenting the left brain with a task it'll reject or lose interest in and allow the right
brain to take over.

 
Which brings us to Lesson One's objective: Identifying the conflict

OK, all that being said, now we're into the conflict zone. Lesson one pits both the
language-driven brain and your spatial-reckoning right brain into a face to face collision.
Literally. How's it accomplish that? By naming the parts of the face as you trace
them, you're calling up language. When you go to draw the second half of each "Vase-face"
you must toil through language's dominant hold to complete the assignment.

The Objective: To experience this conflict. This is where you get a feel for two things:

1) the feeling of frustration when the left half of your brain realizes it can't do the job. You
may actually feel confusion, frustration, even a moment of anger as you walk the edge of
shifting into R-mode (your right brain). Stick with it. The left side of your brain must
relinquish the task to your right brain.

2) the second part of the objective is  - in retrospect - to recognize how it felt when
you resolved how to draw the second half of the vase-face. Like falling asleep,
you really don't know when you fell asleep, just that after waking you knew you did.
Does that make sense?


Heres' your assignment

Go back and and read and do the Lesson One assignments. Slow down. Do them. (Try
to do at least three or four of them). Once you can do those, go to Lesson two. Lesson two is
just a beefed-up version of lesson One.


Now go and do it :-)

here's the needed links:

Lesson One -  http://ycdinsiders.digitalchainsaw.com/InsidersArtistLoft/lesson1.htm
Lesson Two - http://ycdinsiders.digitalchainsaw.com/InsidersArtistLoft/lesson2.htm




Other relevant, not so relevant (and possibly redundant) Archives:

...But it's always worth reading them because you might catch a nuance that
opens a whole new way of looking at or understanding a topic.


getting into R-mode:

http://ycdinsiders.digitalchainsaw.com/InsidersArtistLoft/15may200.htm


scheduling your drawing time:

http://ycdinsiders.digitalchainsaw.com/InsidersArtistLoft/31may200.htm


First aid for tough drawing days:

http://ycdinsiders.digitalchainsaw.com/InsidersArtistLoft/14_oct_2000.htm
http://ycdinsiders.digitalchainsaw.com/InsidersArtistLoft/end02update-5dec2002.htm

(There was a relevant recent email  -  it's not uploaded yet, but will be shortly.)


Wrapping up

So you've got some time now if you've been neglecting your drawing commitment. You've
got a year basically to work your way through the entire book and sharpen up on those
areas you've been avoiding. Commit to your art. Just little bits every week on a
continual basis will reap real rewards. Guaranteed. So keep on drawing!


Wrapping up the wrap-up...Just for fun

Check out this site - it's a caricaturist who's doing all sorts of amazing stuff: from
caricature to fine art, to three-dimensional "polymer clay" creations. What a blast!
You'll be inspired:   www.leekaster.com



Warmly,



Jeffrey O. Kasbohm
Executive Director
Kasbohm & Company Strategic Multimedia
home of http://www.YouCanDraw.com

(952) 544-0657
1351 Hampshire Ave. So., #127
St. Louis Park, MN  55426

"Once and for all  getting you drawing faces and caricatures"
mailto:comments@youcandraw.com